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Every day, we read about another woman who has thrown in the towel. A woman who's left her team, or her company, or her industry, fed up with the constant exhaustion of having to continually deal with sexism in the technology industry. And there are doubtlessly many many more who leave silently, without a high-profile exit. How many women (or trans* people, or minority ethnicities, or...) leaving the industry—or worse, never entering it—over this shit are we prepared to tolerate? Even if they don't leave, how many lives are willing to make miserable? How many careers are we willing to stunt through fear, anger, and distress?

I want to make one thing perfectly clear, especially to my fellow white straight cis-males: I'm not OK with this. Not by a very long way. As a manager, I want to make it quite clear that any team under my management will have zero tolerance for sexism, racism and transphobia, in whatever form they come. If I see it, I will call it out. If you want to do it, move elsewhere (ideally out of my company, or even better out of CS altogether). This applies as well for teams, groups, or conferences I participate in, but don't manage: if I see it, I will say it. If it continues, I am done with you and I will do everything in my power to never have to work with you again, at my current or any future company.

I beg all of you to watch https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QaqpoeVgr8U, a video made in the face of (yet another) sexual misbehaviour scandal in the Australian army. It is by far one of the most powerful anti-sexism messages ever spoken. I literally have a calendar reminder set to watch this every few months, because it is so powerful and resonates with me so strongly. It's a refreshing reminder of what a powerful anti-sexism message can look like.

Watch it, and if you take nothing else away from David Morrison's speech, take away this: "The standard you walk past is the standard you accept". It doesn't matter if you're not doing it (making the jokes, performing the microaggressions, belittling the contributions); it matters that you allow it to happen. By allowing it to happen, without stepping in, you are giving it your implicit approval, and letting it take root and grow. The standard you walk past is the standard you accept.

For the managers reading this, remember his followup: "That goes for all of us, but especially those who, by their rank, have a leadership role". As managers, some of us have a unique ability and responsibility. Do not let this fester in your team. If it festers in your team, it spreads, and the whole of your team, your company, and your industry all become lesser places for it.

Don't be silent. We, as individuals and as an industry, need to root this rot out and destroy it. It will take all of us, and I promise to do what I can.

Author's note: this is an edited version of something I posted internally at Google.﻿

When we launched Google+ over three years ago, we had a lot of restrictions on what name you could use on your profile. This helped create a community made up of real people, but it also excluded a number of people who wanted to be part of it without using their real names.

Over the years, as Google+ grew and its community became established, we steadily opened up this policy, from allowing +Page owners to use any name of their choosing to letting YouTube users bring their usernames into Google+. Today, we are taking the last step: there are no more restrictions on what name you can use.

We know you've been calling for this change for a while. We know that our names policy has been unclear, and this has led to some unnecessarily difficult experiences for some of our users. For this we apologize, and we hope that today's change is a step toward making Google+ the welcoming and inclusive place that we want it to be. Thank you for expressing your opinions so passionately, and thanks for continuing to make Google+ the thoughtful community that it is.﻿

For the past few months, I've been heavily involved in running rehearsals and performances as stage manager of Palo Alto Players' production of Young Frankenstein.

We opened last weekend to wildly positive audience acclaim. If you're in the SF Bay Area, I encourage you to catch one of the remaining 8 performances this weekend or next. The show runs Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights and Sunday afternoons through May 8.

It’s ALIVE! Only an abnormal brain from a mad genius like Mel Brooks could reanimate this 1974 film favorite as a Broadway smash, by surgically attaching show-stopping staging to a hysteria-inducing score. Drawing loosely (and we use the term “loosely” loosely) upon the Mary Shelley classic, Dr. Frankenstein (that’s “Fronk-en-steen”!) inherits a Transylvanian castle prime for monster-making. Back along for the wild ride is that irresistibly deranged cast of characters, including Frau Blücher, hunchback Igor (that’s “Eye-gor”!) and ravishing lab assistant Inga, as well as the very best of the demented rest.